Chapter 3
Hermione woke up feeling as though one of the dancers had shit in her mouth the night before. She knew she shouldn’t have drunk so much but it had been Luna's birthday after all. She tried to remember last night's fuckery as she struggled to her bathroom to find the hangover potion that the twins kept stocked at all times. Once that was drunk she proceeded to brush the awful taste out of her mouth and went to shower away any unknown shame that had occurred the night before (she wasn’t one to be shamed, however, imbibing enough to forget was certainly cause for the emotion).
With her afternoon ritual out of the way, she stepped out into the living room on her way to the kitchen only to be stopped by a man, in only his undies, lying on top of their couch cushions, which had been moved to the floor. She didn’t remember bringing anyone home last night, did she remember Ginny or Pansy bringing one home? A very loose memory tried to grab hold but ultimately slipped her grasp. She called upon her patronus and seconds later the antipodean opaleye was standing in front of her (the otter had changed to the dragon after her exit from the ministry and further questionable activities).
“Who does this random half-naked man belong to?” With its message received the dragon took off.
Hermione decided to make some coffee while she waited for a response, not expecting Pansy to burst into the living room with her bonnet trying its hardest to remain on her head and her nightgown in sheer disarray.
“I told this prat to leave last night” she grumbled. Before she could make it to him to kick him awake Ginny’s mare patronus burst into the room. At first, there was nothing but cackling and then “I passed him this morning on my way to training, didn’t recognize him but I thought I’d leave him as a present for you two heathens.”
Even the sound of Ginny’s monumental laughter could not wake the intruder so Pansy carried on her mission of kicking him awake. Her mission was accomplished, the man jolted awake, looked up, and proceeded to, quite dumbly, announce “A two-for-one deal today huh? Hey gorgeous, how about you make me some breakfast before we get round two going?”
“A fucking American?” Hermione drawled while staring down her best friend “For Merlin’s sake you couldn’t have chosen someone with a modicum of some decorum? No wonder he’s still here.”
“I liked the accent” Pansy replied with a shrug “how was I supposed to know they weren’t trained properly?”
“Morgana help us all.”
“Wait, Merlin. Like that guy from King Arthur?”
“And a fucking muggle? Morgana Pansy, could you have chosen any worse?”
“Hey wait a minute now, I’m a catch. You shortys should consider yourselves lucky ya know,”
Twin peaks of laughter sounded out before they paused at the look on the random man's face. “Oh you’re serious? Darling, there’s a reason I told you to leave last night. Your pump-and-done routine was pitiful at best. A nightmare really.”
The man, clearly trying to save face now responded with “It was just a touch of whiskey dick, come on baby make me some breakfast and I’ll-“ his statement was interrupted and where a random man had sat, now stood a toy soldier no larger than Hermione's pinky finger.
“I couldn’t take another second of his audacity,” was Hermione's only explanation.
Pansy shrugged “He looks better this way actually, sounds a whole lot better too. Merlin, what was in those drinks last night?”
“Tequila.”
“And when did we start on the tequila?”
“After you declared that the bartender had replaced the vodka with water and demanded that he switch to tequila.”
“And what happened after that?”
“Only Morgana knows, apparently you remembered bringing him and his abysmal dick game home. ”
“Oh, I only remember the sex and telling him to leave. Nothing before that.”
“Wonderful, perfect really. A whole night that neither of us remembers. Get cleaned up, I want to check on the club before we go pick up this weekend's stock from the twins.”
As Pansy walked away to do just that, Hermione reset the cushions on the couch, placed the new toy soldier on the mantle along with the rest of their… more creative decorations, and then went to make coffee for the two of them. They had both slept through their morning workout, Morgana only knows how Ginny was able to wake up for training. Hermione remembered reading something about redheads being near immune to substances. That had to be it.
45 minutes later Pansy re-emerged, primped and primed to perfection as always. One last check in the door side mirror from both of them before they headed out to the club. Apparating directly into the office of the club they were greeted by their assistant Claire.
Claire had been a worker at another club, when she confessed that sex work wasn’t exactly her style and that she was forced into it starting entirely too young. Hermione immediately appointed her their assistant to the club and sent her to the best mind healer her money could buy. She was a squib from a prominent Irish family, one who declared her only worth without magic was to make their coffers fuller. Hermione also took care of the girl's family and left her set for life but Claire had decided she liked the busy work and stayed on.
“Late night ladies? Ginny was already by this morning and told me what she could about it. Tequila? Really?”
“Ginny remembers?” Hermione asked, she was determined to find one person who could tell her what happened last night.
“Oh no, not much. She just said things were already wild when Pansy demanded the bartender switch to tequila, everything after that was a blur.”
“Merlin and Morgana above, did the papers say anything about it. A repeat of Skeeter’s ‘Golden Girl Gone Dark’ bullshit?”
Pansy chuckled before adding “she does love to target you personally love, I’m working on a way to silence her forever.”
“We can’t kill her Pans, she’s too well known. And if something happens to her it’ll bring heat onto us.”
“I’m not talking about killing her Mi, I'm talking about doing things the legal way. You know, the way I learned during my expensive education?” An eye roll accompanied the rebuttal.
Claire cut in “I’m sure you can figure out what happened last night at some point, if it didn’t end up in this morning’s Daily Prophet then it must not have been too bad.”
“Here’s to hoping, what do you have for us today?” Hermione asked.
“Well, the twins are expecting you soon to pick up this weekend’s stock. Everything is good here, getting set up for tonight’s Valentines and Lupercalia party, there were no mishaps last night. We do have a new muggle politician coming in so I was thinking of putting him with Marco. He’s deep in the closet, and Marco is spectacular at getting information on the new ones quickly.”
“Good. Are we due anywhere after our meet-up with the twins?”
“No, not that I have marked down. You’re free until your meeting tonight with Draco Malfoy.”
At the mention of his name Hermione groaned, she didn’t think about what tonight would be when she agreed to the meeting, the holiday dedicated to fucking. It was a great night for the club, not so much for this meeting. She considered rescheduling, thinking of a last-minute excuse. She quickly threw that idea away, she needed to know what Malfoy was doing and what his goal was. She couldn’t put this off.
She also noticed butterflies in her stomach and she couldn’t help but think that was odd. She hadn't seen him in years, and sure, Pansy had shown her a more recent picture of him, a picture that showed exactly how fit he had become since school and the war ended, but a silly picture shouldn’t warrant full blown flutters in her stomach, should it?
Pansy was watching the emotions flash across her friend's face, Hermione really was shit at hiding those pesky things. She knew her friends were absolutely perfect for each other but both were too stubborn to do anything about it. Thinking on it, Pansy came to a decision.
“I have an idea for tonight, let’s put you on the pole for when he’s due to show up Mi, leave him razzled before the talks start. Fuck with him a bit, it’ll be a nice little treat for the guests as well, the queen herself starting the night of debauchery with her beauty. Not often do you give them a show like that. The end of your dance could be the official start of the hunt.” Pansy had earned her degree in meddling from Narcissa Malfoy herself and she would be damned if she didn’t put it to good use.
Hermione looked at her friend with suspicious eyes, Claire tried and failed to hide a smile behind her hand, and Pansy stood there with a look of what she thought was pure innocence. Pansy wouldn’t know innocence if a divine being themselves slapped her in the face with it.
Hermione sighed and said “fine, we’ll choose a song and work on the routine after we meet with the twins. We should get going for that, I'm starving and could use a good fry up after. We’ll be back soon Claire, would you like us to bring you any food back?”
“Maybe yea, I’ll think about it and then send a message through the journals when I decide on something. You will be eating in Diagon right?
“Oh absolutely, Susan just opened her new pub, rave reviews all around. Been meaning to check it out and after a night like last I thought now’s as good a time as any.”
“Perfect, we’re expecting the liquor shipment soon so I’ll go deal with that while you guys go see the twins. Tell them I said hi,” and she was off.
And then Pansy and Hermione were off.
They walked into Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes and found Lee at the counter, “Slow day Lee?”
He nodded “Sure but that’s to be expected on Valentine’s Day I guess, Fred and George are in the back. They’re waiting for you ladies.”
They found the twins in the back room, presumably working on a new invention. Heads bowed over the table with ‘Regulators’ by Warren G blaring from the sound system.
They gave the twins a second to notice they were there, knowing that interrupting them during an invention spree could turn deadly. When the song switched to ‘On and On’ by Eryka Badu Hermione cleared her throat.
George looked up “Well hello ladies!! Nice of you to finally stop by on this fine afternoon.”
Fred continued with “Mione, it should be illegal for you to walk in public in those jeans, and Pansy, I see you’re also showing off your best assets, as always.”
Both witches chuckled before giving the twins hugs, they always were so open with the compliments, it was hard not to adore them.
“So girls, rough night last night? You were due here hours ago and neither of you are ones to be late.” Fred said, his eyebrows raising suggestively.
“You could say that,” Hermione muttered before continuing, “What have you got for us tonight?”
“Well, we have the Amortentia, we set it up to be aerosolized for tonight’s activities. Of course, we have the antidotes for those who don’t wish to partake. We have our own version of the muggle drugs Cocaine and Ecstasy, and of course the weed grown by Neville himself so you know it’s good.”
Before either Hermione or Pansy could reply, the sound system switched from Mary J. Blige ‘Family Affairs’ to ‘Fuck Tha Police’ by N.W.A and the volume jumped back up to what it had been when they first walked in.
Every person in the room groaned at once. Fred and George had charmed the song to play whenever Ron walked into the shop since the day he was released from training and made an Auror.
“Can you go deal with him so we can get out of here? Please?” Hermione whined.
“What is it princess, you don’t want to have an extremely stimulating conversation with our dear baby brother?” George said with a chuckle.
“What she doesn’t want, is to hear your fellow spawn reliving the good days of when they were both miserable in a dead-end relationship, nor does either of us want to listen to his war stories of his time as an Auror. Especially not when we’re about to walk out with questionably legal substances” Pansy replied, her raised eyebrow could cut glass if she wanted it to.
Fred outright laughed before heading out to the shop. They could hear “oh Ronniekins!” As he left.
“So what is the plan for tonight princess? What kind of shenanigans can we expect?” George asked.
“Well. I’ll be starting the night off with a dance, and at the end of said dance the hunt will begin. All hunters will be given a wolf mask, all prey will be given white shifts to wear. Dance starts at midnight and then” she ended the statement with a shrug.
“You? Dancing? You haven’t done that in a while. What’s special about tonight?”
Pansy was nearly vibrating with excitement about sharing the news, so much so she almost yelled out “She agreed to a meeting with Draco, it’s tonight. He’ll be there at midnight”
George laughed before replying “So he finally did it huh? The git caught your attention?”
Pansy almost jumped and did yell “Yes!”
Hermione looked at her two friends, now behaving like idiotic school girls before saying “Am I the last person to know about this supposed crush?”
“Literally the last. You may be the brightest witch of your age, and a crime boss, but love you are so obtuse sometimes it’s ridiculous” Pansy huffed.
George said “yea princess, he waxes poetic about his love for you to any person with a heartbeat in his vicinity. It’s almost disturbing really.”
Hermione snorted “There’s no way it’s love, we haven’t even seen each other for years”
Both of her friends' faces grew serious. “Hermione, he started killing people again because they were mean to you. He began his own little crime ring with the sole purpose of being your backup, not for his own benefit. For you. He has quite actually shown his love in the most purposeful ways in hopes that you wouldn’t fight him too much when he did finally catch your attention. That is a wizard in love”
Hermione paused for a minute to consider this, Fred coming back into the room ruined her ruminating “he’s gone. You girls are safe. Why do you two look like you’ve managed to get your greedy hands on Santa’s sleigh?”
“Hermione agreed to meet Draco, it’s happening tonight!!” Pansy blurred out.
Hermione sighed and walked out of the room to raucous peals of delight.
Later, when Hermione was getting ready for her dance she thought on all the information she had learned about Draco Malfoy since she agreed to the meeting. New Draco Malfoy, well, not exactly new as the whole crime ring business was kind of a family business for his family. But the fact that he had apparently accomplished so much since the end of the war. All for her.
Pansy and Ginny interrupted her musings with wolf whistles “Merlin be damned Mione, he is going to eat you alive tonight” was Ginny’s declaration.
Pansy only nodded with a sinister smile on her face “it’s almost time. He’s already at the table so we came back to grab you and get this night started”
Hermione took a second to look herself over once more in the mirror, her hair perfectly mussed and wild, her red corset and shorts set perfectly highlighted her tanned skin. Hermione had been overjoyed when she found a stylist who made corsets that were comfortable enough to pole dance in.
As Hermione was walking onto the stage she saw him, in person, for the first time in years. He was in the front booth, Blaise on one side of him, and Theo and Adrian on the other side. She briefly noticed them, for as soon as she saw him he was the only thing worth seeing. His shoulders were broad enough that she could comfortably sit on one. His arms, dangling languidly on the back of the booth, looked as though they could easily hold her up against a wall for hours. His legs were crossed, one foot over the other knee, his thighs bulging in his perfectly tailored suit. He had removed his jacket, no tie to be found, with his top two buttons undone, his sleeves rolled to his forearms. She saw the ink Pansy had mentioned, peaking out. His hair, no longer slicked back like in school, fell towards his forehead. The smirk on his face, a promise of devilish proportions. She felt his eyes before she saw them, could feel them burning into her very soul. That striking blue that she remembered so vividly from school. How the color would turn to ice at times, and flash to a blue so dark it seemed as though there was a storm brewing inside of him.
There was a storm brewing inside of him now, and his eyes were so full of hunger that Hermione felt her core clench.
She arrived at the pole at the exact moment that ‘Angel’ by Massive Attack began playing, just as practiced.
She went through the routine flawlessly, just as practiced.
What she didn’t practice was leaving the stage before the song was over. Or crawling onto Draco’s table directly in front of him. Or giving him an offer as “love you, love you, love you, love you” played in the background.
None of those things were practiced, but she had a feeling they were going to be the best decisions of her night.